Old Poison

by Joan Francis

  With a smile as phony as mine she laced her whiskey voice with heavy sarcasm. “Oh, you’re just so welcome.”

  The marina Charlene had come up with was right on Terminal Island. It was not one of the glamorous marinas you find in Long Beach or Newport Beach where the yuppies keep their pleasure yachts. The boats here are nestled into a little niche of the working harbor; most of them looked just as grubby as the surrounding buildings. Many were live-aboards, and were so covered with plants, bicycles, BBQs, boxes, and other paraphernalia of daily life that they could not have been out of their boat slips in years.

  I stood on the bank watching a pair of giant cranes load a freighter that was docked just across the channel. The smaller crane wheeled back to a pile of containers, picked one up, and carried it to the gantry crane. The gantry lifted the container up and out over the ship, then lowered it carefully into place on deck. Amazing machines. I thought about the thousands of men who used to do the loading with simpler devices and with the strength of their backs. A lot of time and back injuries were saved by going to containers and cranes, but thousands of jobs lost. I wondered which way served mankind best.

  As I watched the cranes, an old man watched me. He sat on the deck of his old trawler in a rocking chair that had just barely enough room to rock without hitting any of the piles of stuff stacked around the deck.

  I followed the marina to the ocean end, noting the slip numbers as I went. His eyes followed me. How many others peeked out of portholes to check out the stranger who so obviously didn’t belong to this small boat community? On the way back, I saw that the space for the speedboat was just two slips up from the old man. It was empty. Continuing up the walkway, I checked each boat slip in case the boat I was looking for had moved. It was nowhere in this marina. I returned to the old man in his rocking chair.

  “Good afternoon.”

  He rocked the chair a couple of times to launch himself, then stood on wobbly legs and hobbled over to the bow of the boat. “I’ll bet you’re a social worker.”

  I smiled. Sticking with my Norwegian accent, I asked, “Oh? What makes you think that?”

  He looked surprised, then delighted, then set me for a loss by answering me in Norwegian. Not having the vaguest idea what he said, I smiled, “Oh, how wonderful! You speak Norwegian.”

  He was so pleased with himself. “Ha, I knew it the minute you opened your mouth. I’m a regular Henry Higgins, just like Rex Harrison. I can pick out a man’s accent every time. But, no, I don’t speak it, ’cept that little bit and a few words not so polite. Picked that much up in the Merchant Marine. Knew a lot of you Scandawhovians in those days.”

  “That’s very good. Not many people would know exactly what country I am from. But you lose the other bet. I’m not a social worker, I’m an insurance investigator.”

  “Insurance, huh. You sure you’re not here to hunt down ol’ Brad Commins for his child support payments?” His milky gray eyes were probably covered with cataracts, but it didn’t seem to have slowed his observation of life around him. In addition, he had that eagerness to talk that so often afflicts the old and lonely. He was an investigator’s delight.

  “No,” I answered, “but if I were, I’ll bet you would be the one who could help me. Actually, I’m just here to settle a small insurance claim. I’m trying to find the speedboat that is supposed to be in slip twelve. Is it out for the day or moved for good?”

  “Actually, it’s probably more like out for good.” He laughed at his own play on words. “Damn thing woulda sunk right there if I hadn’t called the Coast Guard.”

  “Really? What happened?”

  “Well, she was docked here, oh, seven, eight months ago, and almost never went out. Two or three times somebody took some suit-wearing fellas out for some sort of pleasure ride or something. Out just a few hours, and then back to just sit there, growin’ barnacles. Kinda a shame for such an expensive boat.

  “Then these two thugs shows up one day, maybe a month ago. They was dropped off by a motorboat. No name or marking I could see, but it looked like a lighter off one a them foreign freighters. These guys was worthless. They didn’t know an anchor from an ostrich. Damn near hit three boats before they got the thing out of the marina. I knew it when I saw the way they handled that boat. I knew they would never get it back in one piece. They didn’t. Come back later that morning with cracks in the hull, leaking like a sieve, and just docked her and left her to sink. They left on the same lighter that brung um. Nobody knew who owned her, so I just called the Coast Guard and they hauled her off to White’s.”

  “What is White’s?”

  “Old boatyard over in San Pedro. Real busy when we had a fishing fleet. Now it’s more of a wreckin’ yard than a boatyard.”

  “These two men, can you describe them for me?”

  “Well, my eyes aren’t so good that I could give you much of the fine detail, like eye color and such. I can tell you they weren’t too tall, maybe five foot eight or nine. They was all dressed up to be sailors, only they must a gotten their ideas about sailors from old movies: bell-bottom trousers, watch caps, and such. Looked pretty damn silly. I can tell you one thing, though. They was Venezuelans.”

  “Why are you so certain they were Venezolanos?”

  “Why, their accent, of course. Those Venezuelans have a distinctive accent, completely different from them other Spanish speakers. But then I can tell what country most Spanish speakers are from. They most of them have their own little differences, ya know. Strikes me like you know something about their lingo too. That’s how they call themselves, they say Venezolanos, like that.”

  Whoops. Maybe I underestimated this old man. “You really are good with those accents. Did you notice anything else about them? Did they take any cargo or anything on board?”

  The old man started to laugh. “Yes, they did take something aboard, and they probably managed to wreck that too. Least ways they never brung it back.”

  I knew the answer before I asked but had to have him confirm it. “What was it they took and didn’t bring back?”

  “A bicycle.”

  * * * * *

  TWENTY-TWO

  I had spent two years in Ciudad Piar, Venezuela, while my dad consulted on a few problems at the iron mine there, so I didn’t question the old man’s identification of a Venezolano accent. Even though there were regional and social variations, there were enough distinctive characteristics to make it identifiable to someone with a good ear.

  Putting the other pieces together with the old man’s information, the picture seemed quite clear, but then clear pictures are often drawn from potentially dangerous assumptions. It looked like the boat owner, Deep Driller, Inc., was based in Venezuela. A couple thugs from there were probably brought onshore illegally and given the speedboat and orders to kidnap or kill Evelyn. After their crime, they were taken right back to the ship and returned to Venezuela. Police here wouldn’t have a prayer of finding them. They never existed in this country. I decided there was no point in even trying to find them, but I could still check out the boat and the mailbox. The company had to have some contact to handle things here in the States.

  It was almost dark by the time I left the marina and worked my way around San Pedro to White’s Boatyard. A cold, wet onshore breeze greeted me as I stepped out of the car. I grabbed my windbreaker, slipped my stun gun in the pocket, and zipped up the jacket.

  There was a two-story blue-and-white building in the center of the yard, a blue wooden gate in front, and a wire fence trimmed in barbed wire around the perimeter. Starting at water’s edge on one side, I followed the perimeter fence around the small peninsula to where it touched the water on the other side. I decided the old man was right. “Wreckin’ yard” was a better description, or maybe junkyard. Inside the fence was a tangled collection of boats, boat parts, and machinery. Many of the pieces of metal and wood defied my attempts to guess what they were. One object, however, was easy to identify. Stacked among the rubble was the
speedboat that had been used in the attack on Evelyn.

  The sign on the gate said “closed”. I wasn’t sure if it meant for today or forever, but I could see a light in an upstairs room of the building. Thinking someone might be working late or perhaps living here as a night watchman, I looked for a bell or buzzer. At the gate was an old ship’s bell with a mallet dangling by a rope. I picked up the mallet and gave the bell a tentative tap. When that brought no response, I really let go and pounded on the thing.

  As the sound reverberated around the silent peninsula, I looked to see if I had disturbed anyone else and realized there was no one else to disturb. The only neighbors were other junkyards filled with remnants of old conveyer belts that had once been used to fill the freighters with bulk cargo in the days before cargo containers. My ears still ringing, I felt like I had triggered the alarm at the gate to Hades. With a growing sense of apprehension, I had to control an urge to run to my car and get the hell out of there. It was one of those eerie premonitions that hindsight tells us we should have listened to.

  Before I could consciously evaluate my instincts, however, a light came on in one of the first-floor rooms and the door opened. A huge bull mastiff lunged from the door and took only five or six bounds before he hit the gate with such power I was afraid the gate would break loose from its rickety supports and topple right over.

  Terrified of dogs, I backed up several steps, slipped my hand into my windbreaker pocket, and wrapped it snugly around my stun gun. It was the only weapon I had with me. The Walther was in the trunk of my rental car. The LAPD and the LA County Sheriff refuse to give anyone a permit to carry a concealed weapon; so, law-abiding citizen that I am, I tend not to carry a gun unless I feel I may be in a life-threatening situation. The funny thing about life-threatening situations is they can happen when you don’t expect them.

  A short man in a dark-colored turtleneck sweater followed the dog to the gate and asked in a heavy Spanish accent, “What do you want?”

  “Good evening. I am sorry to disturb you so late, but I am Clara Shimmerhorn, and I am trying to settle an insurance claim on that speedboat over there.”

  He looked briefly toward the boat and replied, “But we made no insurance claim.”

  “Ah, no, you see the claim was made by my client, the people who were in the other boat.”

  “What other boat?”

  “The one that was hit by that boat.”

  In his anxiety, he slipped into Spanish. His first sentence made my jaw drop, and I sucked in a gulp of air as realization hit me. He’d said, “I did not hit no boat.” He definitely used the verb form for first person-singular, and he said the word “I.” Instead of pronouncing it as yo, he pronounced it jo. As he continued in Spanish, telling me he hit only a submerged grocery cart in the river, his accent left no doubt. He was Venezolano!

  I saw his face change from annoyed and defensive to suspicious, and felt myself tense as I realized my own stupidity. With my poor visual memory, I might not have been able to describe this guy to a police artist, but now, as he stared at me over the gate, there was no doubt in my mind. The last time I saw this man he was hunched over the wheel of that speed-boat. I had assumed that as soon as these fellows had finished their task, they’d been shipped out. Perhaps they hadn’t finished the task. They had missed Evelyn. Questions raced through my mind. Why had they been kept with the boat? Were they living here as night watchmen? Had someone anticipated my searching for the boat? Were they just waiting here to see who showed up? They? Where was the other one?

  At the same moment I asked myself that question, I heard a sound behind me. I turned just in time to see his arm descend toward my head. My motion redirected his aim, and the blow fell on the top front of my head instead of the back. The zap connected with my skull, my teeth jarred together, instant pain filled my head, and blood ran down my face. As I fell to the ground, I could hear the two of them yelling at each other, but my brain was too scrambled to even try to understand what they were saying. I was struggling to regain my feet and defend myself when I was hit on both shoulders and knocked backward. The next thing I knew, the bull mastiff had his jaws around my throat. I lay there as this growling terror tightened his hold. The Venezolano who had piloted the boat was at my ear, yelling commands to the dog and to me. To the dog he spoke in Spanish. To me he said, “Hold still or he will rip out your throat.”

  I knew and understood what he said, but fear and panic filled me, and my arm was already moving. I pulled the stun gun from my pocket and jammed it into the dog’s gut and squeezed the trigger. He whimpered and growled at the same time, making an unearthly sound, but he didn’t let go. He would carry out his charge if it killed him. I felt his jaws tighten, teeth puncturing my neck, and I brought my other arm up and grabbed his lower jaw. My hand was inside his mouth when he finally got enough juice from the stun gun that his whole body jerked convulsively and went limp. I shoved him off me and tried to get up, but a number nine boot connected with my stomach. I vomited a watery bile that ran down the pavement and under my head. As evidence of my mental condition, the last thing I remember thinking was a totally discrepant concern: Would that vomit running in my ear give me an ear infection?

  * * * * *

  TWENTY-THREE

  I must have been awake earlier, because I knew before I touched my head that there would be a bandage on it. I also knew I was lying on a canvas cot and was covered with a rough woolen blanket. Running my hand around the cold metal pipe legs of the cot, I felt laces attached to canvas and confirmed memory there too. To learn anything else would require opening my eyes. My head throbbed and I had a vague memory of pain and nausea when I had tried to sit up before. It was tempting to just go back to sleep.

  Despite my desire to escape into dreamland, somebody on my internal board of directors was figuratively shaking me awake. It was the Intrepid Investigator part of me asking questions like, “Why did they zap me on the head and then bandage and care for me?” The Coward in me said, “I don’t want to know, I just want to sleep and forget it. Maybe when I wake up again it will be all gone.”

  Then someone on my committee threw in the clincher. “If you don’t wake up now, they might see to it you never get another opportunity.” On that thought I opened my eyes.

  Lying on my left side, I could see light from an adjoining room shining through all the cracks around the door. In the corner to the right of the door was a washbasin. To see what was to the left, I would have to move my head, and I wasn’t quite ready to do that. A vague murmur came from the next room, but not loud enough for me to make out what was said.

  The voices triggered another memory. They had been arguing over me. The one who had zapped me wanted to kill me. The other one wouldn’t let him and kept repeating in Spanish, “We have instructions.”

  Suddenly I heard a new voice, louder, definitely English speaking, and I could even make out some of his words. Someone or something would arrive about noon. Who? What? I had to hear more. Slowly and carefully I raised myself to a sitting position and waited for the dizziness and nausea to subside. The throbbing headache increased.

  Ambient light from outside entered through the window on the wall opposite from the door, lighting that side of the room. Carefully, I stood and walked to the window. Suspicions confirmed. I was in an upstairs room of the building that was inside the boatyard. I tried the window and couldn’t budge it, but in my condition I didn’t feel up to much effort. Even if I got it open, I didn’t see any way to get down from the second floor. At the moment the pain in my head took precedence over everything, even conversation from the next room.

  At the end of the room I could see a door partly open. If memory served, the dark interior beyond would be the bathroom. I started for it, but partway there I had to pause and hold onto the wall while the room spun. When the spinning slowed, I walked carefully to the bathroom, felt for the light switch, silently shut the door and flipped on the light. Shouldn’t have done that. The small
wattage bulb over the sink seemed like a sunburst in my eyes. I flipped it off and waited a moment. Then with my eyes shut, I turned it on again. Opening my eyes a tiny slit, I pulled the cabinet door open, found the bottle of Excedrin, and poured three pills into my hand. As I reached for the glass on the sink, another of those isolated memories flashed in my aching brain. The old pipes in this bathroom had made a terrible noise before. I didn’t want my captors to know I was awake, so I tossed the pills into my mouth and began chewing. The noise of my teeth cracking and crunching the pills rumbled through my head and sounded loud enough to be heard in the next room.

  I turned off the light, opened the door, and stood there a moment waiting for my eyes to readjust to the semi-darkness. Then, as quietly as possible, I made my way to the door that led to the next room. Lying on the floor, I peeked through the half-inch gap under the door. I could see the legs of wooden chairs and the scarred and scratched bottom of an old pedestal table. Two men were seated and one standing. The English-speaking man was giving instructions to the two Venezolanos, and I caught a few words here and there. “. . . water will . . . to be laced. The food and refuge . . . the other one are fine. Better get two of batteries . . .” Then he raised his voice and I heard all of the next sentence. “Don’t look at me like that, Morro. We want her to arrive healthy and in one piece.”

  I liked the sound of part of that. It seemed to be at least a temporary reprieve. But where was I to “arrive” and what would happen then? I just wished I could have caught more of the first part.

  “But it’s only about a hundred miles to the plant, why . . . ”

  “She’s not going to the plant. . . . her . . . south.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not for you to worry about. Do your job and . . . with pay. I’ve got to go. Call me if you have any problems.”

  He was leaving, and I had to try to get a look at him. I stood up and tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked. I opened the door just a crack, but the damn thing screeched like the opening of The Inner Sanctum. All speech stopped. Then the guy who spoke English started cursing. Too late now to try to be secretive. I opened the door and got a good look at him. Using my own little observation technique, I put the picture I saw into words: about six foot, sandy brown hair, jowly face, brown eyes, heavy body with a slight paunch, grey slacks, white shirt, no tie, collar open, brown shoes, and expensive-looking gold watch. Most interesting of all was the bright yellow cap with an iridescent blue butterfly logo and the corporate name, Blue Morpho Petroleum. It also helped that I had seen him before. This guy sat next to the Texan who had spoken up at Nate’s conference. I would bet my Danny Kaye video collection that this guy was Harriman Woods, the Morpho PR guy that had been hanging around Nate.